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Based on the most recent state data for this year, New Mexico is on track to bust the 80 million bbl oil production level for the first time since the late 1970s, and natural gas is expected to stay level at about 1.2 Tcf, according New Mexico Oil and Gas Association (NMOGA) officials.

Natural gas cash prices soared Friday following a post-Christmas snow storm that dropped more than a foot of snow on large swaths of the Northeast. A handful of locations in the region even soared north of $10/MMBtu as pipelines were running at capacity with even more cold forecasted in the week ahead.

The effects of cheap U.S. ethane were writ large in the third quarter results of Westlake Chemical Corp., which has a number of projects under way to take greater advantage of the low-cost feedstock.

The effects of cheap U.S. ethane were writ large in the third quarter results of Westlake Chemical Corp., which has a number of projects under way to take greater advantage of the low-cost feedstock.

Methanex Corp. is moving closer to inking a long-term supply contract for its previously announced plan to relocate a large production plant to Louisiana, CEO Bruce Aitken told financial analysts recently.

Santos turned on Australia’s first commercial shale gas production last Friday at the company’s Moomba-191 well in the Cooper Basin.

CNG In A Box, a project launched earlier this year to provide compressed natural gas (CNG) refueling options for large- and small-scale retailers, was unveiled Monday by GE and a Chesapeake Energy Corp. affiliate, Peake Fuel Solutions.

Penn Virginia Resource Partners LP (PVR) has begun service on a new 30-mile, 24-inch diameter trunkline serving Marcellus Shale producers in north-central Pennsylvania with 750 MMcf/d of capacity. The capacity gives producers shipping gas out of the Marcellus a way around constraints on Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s congested 300 Line.

Inflated by production from the nation’s burgeoning shale plays, total gross withdrawals of domestic natural gas jumped to 28.58 Tcf in 2011, a 6.5% increase from 26.84 Tcf in 2010, and are on pace to easily surpass those numbers again this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Monthly Energy Review for September.